


Easter Recovering

by Mystradigans



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Anorexia, Body Image, Easter, Eating Disorders, Greg is a Good Boyfriend, Kidlock, M/M, May be triggering but it's a positive fic, Recovery, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10641231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystradigans/pseuds/Mystradigans
Summary: It's Mycroft's first Easter since being released from inpatient treatment for his eating disorder. With the help of his boyfriend Greg, can he face the challenges of such a food oriented holiday?





	

**Author's Note:**

> By Emily. Stay safe this Easter my lovelies! Please call the relevant ED hotlines in your country if you're struggling- recovery is always, always worth it!
> 
> Trigger warning for brief descriptions of past disordered eating and exercise addiction.

It was Mycroft's first Easter of recovery. First Easter in several years that he was planning on taking part in, rather than locking himself in his room and making excuses, first Easter since the age of 11 that his BMI was within a healthy range, as it had shot up when he began overeating as a child, trying to cope with the bullying he faced in school; and plummeted to dangerous lows when he began to restrict at the age of 15 to compensate. Now, aged almost 20 and making a Herculean effort to recover, it was his second Easter as the boyfriend of Gregory Lestrade, the man who had been his biggest cheerleader and motivation to get better.

Last Easter, Mycroft and Gregory's relationship had been new and Mycroft had been attempting to hide the full extent of his eating disorder from the other man.  
"Would you like to spend Easter with my family?" Greg had asked, around a mouthful of the burger he had offered Mycroft a bite of in that terrifying way he had of making it far too tempting to say no to. The tactic he was unwittingly employing now, drawing Mycroft in with the magnetism that seemed to come from the messy tips of his hair, or the haunted angle of his glasses. "It should be a good time, my cousins will all be over, and you know my Mum would love the chance to fatten you up a bit!"  
'Fatten'. That word bit into Mycroft like a cake knife, making his stomach twist unpleasantly even as the Disordered segment of his brain revelled with some guilt in the reminder of his first introduction to Greg's mother, in which she'd marvelled at the bones poking out of his arms and declared that he needed some meat on him. It had embarrassed him, made him feel like a freak, but at the same time the Disorder had been dizzy with pride. More still, he had almost enjoyed being fussed over by the full-figured, maternal woman in a way that he did not usually permit people to fuss over him. It was tempting and terrifying to spend Easter with Mrs Lestrade and her family, who he imagined were as comfortably curvy and happy about it as Greg and his mother were, and be fed chocolate until everything was okay again, but he knew he couldn't do that.  
"Sorry, I always spend it with Sherlock. It's his favourite holiday" he lied, avoiding Greg's gaze to focus on the cherry tomatoes he was methodically extracting from his salad. That wasn't all a lie- it was indeed Sherlock's favourite as he adored anything chocolatey, a fact which put Mycroft on edge so much that he found he couldn't be around Sherlock when he was eating the stuff; it felt like Mycroft was the one bingeing even though he knew logically that the food was going into Sherlock's infuriatingly skinny body and not his own. So he couldn't possibly spend Easter with the child- he'd make an excuse, maybe even say he was spending Easter with Greg, and go to the gym all day if he could find one that was open, or simply pick a direction and walk until his legs gave out and he had to take a cab back home from wherever in the country he'd ended up.  
"Ah fair enough, maybe next year I can spend it with you both" Greg had said, then blushed as it dawned on him that once again he'd talked about long term plans with the boy he'd been seeing for barely two months. Mycroft loved those blushes. They made him want nothing more than to be whoever Greg thought he was, and be with him forever and ever, without the inevitable catastrophe of Greg finding out about him.  
He smiled, and swallowed uncomfortably around the tomato he was nibbling at and the lie he was going to tell. Because he couldn't ever do what Greg had asked. Could he? "I'd love to" he smiled weakly, and took a reckless stab at the sliced avocado he'd pushed to the side of his plate.

Little could the Mycroft of just one year ago have known that today he'd be waking up on Easter Sunday with his boyfriend by his side, getting ready to go back to his childhood home to have Easter lunch with his parents and brother. He'd moved out of his parent's house late in the summer of last year to go into an inpatient treatment unit, after coming clean to Gregory about his disorder and deciding to commit to recovery with the support of his boyfriend. After his release in February, he'd moved in with Greg- a step which was, like so many of the things Mycroft loved nowadays, scary and exciting and beautiful.  
"Good morning, angel" murmured Greg, kissing Mycroft's shoulder. "Ready for today?"  
It was a picture of domestic bliss that seemed achingly normal, the two young men cuddled together in bed with Mycroft wearing his boyfriend's Star Trek t-shirt even though it spooked him a little that the top was only slightly baggy on him now: when they'd begun dating he could have drowned in it. They lay together for a while, talking quietly, before Greg's craving for coffee got the better of him and he had to get up and put the kettle on.  
"Want me to make you some breakfast?" he called from the kitchen. His flat was so tiny that it was possible to have a conversation with Mycroft from the kitchen whilst the other man was still in bed- something that proved useful on the difficult days when Mycroft got stuck in a rut and had to instruct Greg on how to make something he felt up to eating.  
"No thanks, I'll make it", Mycroft said, pushing himself up. Food was less scary if he had sole control over its preparation, and while there had been occasions where Greg had cooked him breakfast- all of which had been delicious and challenging, for Greg was hardly conservative on the amount of butter he'd spread on a slice of toast and cooked eggs whole rather than meticulously removing the yolks each time- today was going to be a new challenge in itself so he felt more comfortable starting with a 'safe' breakfast. The important thing, Mycroft repeated to himself in his head as he cut up a banana and struggled to resist the urge to get out scales and weigh out an exact amount of museli, was that he ate something: non-disordered people might skip breakfast on occasion and think nothing of it, but for Mycroft skipping a single meal or snack was an invitation for his restrictive thoughts to take over, and he simply couldn't risk that. So he'd eat a safe breakfast, and be sure to have a small supper in the evening even though he knew he'd still be full from lunch and the ground-breaking snack he was planning, because it was what he knew he had to do to stay on track.

When they arrived at the Holmes residence a few hours later, Sherlock was waiting for them at the door. "Greg! Myc! Happy Easter!" he beamed, allowing Mycroft to pull him into a hug. Sherlock was 12, and clever, but Mycroft was cleverer and had managed to hide his eating disorder from his brother pretty effectively over the years, avoiding spending mealtimes with him at all costs and telling him that he'd gone travelling with Greg during the months he'd spent inpatient. He felt somewhat guilty for lying to the boy, and regretted the times he'd missed out on spending with him immensely, but ultimately believed that it was important to protect Sherlock from developing the same problems as him by copying his eating habits. Mummy and Father had visited Mycroft fairly frequently in the treatment centre, though not as often as Greg, but Mycroft hadn't wanted to expose Sherlock to that. He was happier to phone his brother once a week, describing in detail how Gregory and him had visited the Taj Mahal this week on their travels. It had provided him with a sense of escape from the confines of the ward.  
Escape. As they followed Sherlock through to the dining room, Mycroft was suddenly sure that he needed to escape. He could see the cutlery laid out around huge plates, could smell the almost finished meat roasting in the oven, full of fats and oils and unknown calories, and he couldn't do this, he couldn't do this, he needed to stop eating and go to the gym and walk somewhere and-  
"Mycroft, can we go get that book from your room?" Greg was asking, and there was no book but he must have noticed Mycroft's breathing speeding up so Mycroft nodded and let himself be pulled upstairs. He collapsed onto his old bed and put his face in his hands, counting in and out while Greg rubbed his back gently.  
"What's wrong?" Greg whispered. "Do you need to go home?"  
Mycroft nodded, then shook his head. "I'll be okay" he said, to himself as much as to his boyfriend. "I can do this. It's just... just lunch, right?"  
"Just lunch" Greg promised. "You can hold my hand the whole time, I'll switch my fork into my left hand if you want. And I had a peek at what your parents were making and there's a salad with cherry tomatoes. You don't have to have any meat if you don't want it. I'm so proud of you just for being here, Mycie."  
"Okay" Mycroft said, and wiped a few stray tears from his eyes. Then he said "I love you", even though he knew that Greg already knew that, because it was nice to hear and nicer to say. The pair headed downstairs, where an intimidating amount of food was being set out on the table.  
"Happy Easter, dig in!" declared Mummy, and Mycroft gulped but reminded himself that it was going to be okay. He waited a few seconds for everyone else to begin serving themselves food, before tentatively reaching out for the runner beans and putting a medium sized spoonful on his plate. He liked runner beans, they tasted good and the Disorder thought that they were safe- not as safe as cherry tomatoes, which for some reason were the food that seemed the safest even though he wasn't mad about the taste- but safe enough that he felt they were a good start to building a good plate.  
Red onion was harder because they it was in some sort of sauce and Mycroft couldn't be sure what was in it, and knew that his parents would know exactly what was going on if he tried to casually ask. But he placed a spoonful on his plate anyway, not quite touching the beans but fairly close, and did the same with a couple of new potatoes.  
"Lamb, anyone?" offered Mummy, hovering over the tray with a carving knife. There was a chorus of "yes please"s from Greg, Sherlock and Father, and Mycroft squeezed Greg's hand tightly. What the hell, why not?  
"Just a small slice please" he said quietly, and Greg beamed at him while his Father glanced over in surprise and approval. He looked determinedly down at the table while his mother cut him a slice, a feeling of pride that he often got with the adrenaline of facing a fear food almost drowning out the panicked voice of the Disorder. As soon as the meat was on the plate, he reached for the tomato salad and spooned a large helping on top as if to hide the fact that it was there, but nonetheless he ate most of it, along with a large amount of the vegetables on his plate, over the course of the meal.

Mycroft was full. It was a sensation he'd become used to a lot over the course of his treatment; after so many years of empty, consuming anything at all had made his stomach ache for hours, and he'd spent the first few weeks of his treatment in almost constant pain, begging for hot water bottles, glasses of lemon water and massages from Greg in a seemingly endless cycle until his body began to adjust to having food in it. Now, he was comfortably full, feeling pleasantly warm and content in a way that would have been completely alien to him at almost any point in his life until a couple of months ago. He lay back on an armchair with Gregory by his side, and thought that maybe he could stay like this forever.  
"Sherlock and I baked a simnel cake" Mummy said hopefully. "Would you, ah, would you like some Mycroft?"  
She must have known it was a long shot, and the Mycroft of a year ago would have laughed in the face of anyone who offered him cake. Mycroft did want to try Sherlock's baking (though he was wary that the boy may well have added bugs or body parts to the mix) but he was honestly stuffed, and for a moment panicked with no idea what to do. Then, he had an idea.  
"I'm really rather too full just now" he said, with some genuine regret. "But, if it's alright, I'd love to take a piece home to try another time"  
Mummy smiled in approval. "An excellent idea! I'll find some cling film and wrap some up for you later. Greg?"  
"I'm full too, but I'd love a piece to take home" Greg said, sipping his coffee. Mycroft felt gratified by that, sure that it meant he'd made a good decision if Greg was also going to do the same. He felt he deserved a sticker: 'ate like a regular person' or something.  
Sherlock piped up, "I'D like a piece NOW, Mummy!" and they all laughed as the bottomless pit of a boy got himself a large slice without any of the guilt, shame or anxiety Mycroft was so worried he would have picked up on.

A few hours later, having had a relaxed walk (that was not about exercise it was NOT, it was about spending time with the family and enjoying the weather and that was why Mycroft had kicked his disorder in the belly by walking slowly, and going back in with the others rather than insisting on carrying on for a certain amount of steps) and a rather intense game of Monopoly, Mycroft's lunch had digested and it was time to face his snack. This had been one of the scarier parts in the day, as he had decided that he was going to truly embrace the holiday and have some chocolate. Chocolate scared him, but he knew that recovery meant that he could stop opting out of celebrations like holidays (as demonstrated by his triumphant conquering of 2 Yorkshire puddings while spending Christmas inpatient, and the dinner date he had been on with Gregory for Valentine's where he had finally accepted to share the same food as him), and if chocolate was a part of Easter than he wanted to eat chocolate.  
Sherlock was on the floor already some of the way through his giant sized egg, and his parents were snacking on a bowl mini eggs together, so Mycroft didn't feel out of place holding up the hollow egg he was going to share with Gregory and splitting it in two, giving Greg the bigger half more because he knew his boyfriend would likely be getting hungry again than in an attempt to restrict himself.  
With a slightly trembling hand, he broke off a piece of chocolate and put it in his mouth, closing his eyes and enjoying the unfamiliar-yet-familiar taste that he'd denied himself of for years. He could feel Gregory's warm hands on his waist, and hear Sherlock excitedly babbling about Smarties, and in that moment, decided that Easter was one of the best things about recovery.


End file.
